Zach Matthews
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As far as the gar goes, I didn’t get a photo because we were more swimming than wet wading at that point and I had left the camera on the shore.
Ok, so, today was actually a blast despite the conditions basically being terrible. My GPS’ thermometer in the bottom of the boat had us at 113 degrees, which must have been the hot plastic temperature. It was at least in the mid-90s. My integrated striper taper shooting line was getting gummy and sticking to the bottom of the boat.
But, like I said, we actually had a blast. Ian, Lauren and I floated from Johnson Ferry to the 41 bridge takeout on the Hooch – about a 6 mile float. The first third was slow water but it had a lot of carp in it, so we spent time trying to get one of those to eat.
As we entered the Palisades region of bluffs, the crowds of people in inflatable animals picked up. (One large dude was riding an inflatable dragon and appeared too drunk to know where he was any longer). We got to a deep pool that I had marked down as a decent striper hole, and I told Ian this was the striper zone.
He gave me a skeptical look and said, “Isn’t it a little slow?” Really he was right – 95+ degrees in a backwater slough should have had the stripers on the bottom, but I didn’t want to admit that we were basically hosed, so I just bluffed it. 🙂 “No, dude, they like it like this,” (says the guy who has yet to catch a Chattahoochee striper). Shortly after that, I was ready to pack the rig in and paddle on. As I was reeling up, I saw a flash and then watched a spooked 15-20lb. striper scoot under the back end of my canoe (we were both standing in our respective craft, with Lauren playing ghillie for me).
Ian started fishing in earnest then, and a couple minutes later hooked up with and landed a nice 5-7 or so pound striper. He was literally reeling in between tubers and other canoeists.
I went around the bend and caught a decent shoal bass, then it was on down the river so we could get Ian back to Charlotte before midnight.
All in all, a whole ton of fun. I’d like to chase striper in that river when it isn’t burning my butt every time I sat down in my canoe seat, let me tell you.
Zach
All great responses guys! Thanks. It is really a lot to think about.
What are the going rates for stock photos for something like this from an amateur photographer (me)? How are the prices set? How about for field assignments? I really do appreciate the feedback and from the variety of responses can see that I hit on something interesting.
This way of purchasing content hurts the overall design of our fly fishing magazines – but it also keeps the cost down and within budget.
Kevin, I don’t think you would find an editor in the business who disagrees with you.
Guys, thanks for the responses! To clarify a little, the request is to commercially use the photos in a brochure for a fly fishing manufacturer. Zach, I couldn’t agree more with what you had to say, just wanted to see what the norm was.
Shoal bass are an endemic species to the southern drainages that flow directly to the Gulf (i.e. not to the Mississippi or to the Atlantic).
Thanks for the suggestions guys. Eric, I have one of the 160 gig Western Digital Passport drives and like it. I just wish it had a Firewire connection in addition to (or in place of the) the USB 2.0. Sometimes it just seems slow when backing up images.
Ok, here’s what my research has uncovered. This contest is a lot closer than it appears. Let’s start with the weirdest entry:
“The largest American paddlefish on record was caught in Iowa and weighed 198 pounds.”
That makes Leonard’s 50lb. paddlefish about 25% of the world record (but keep in mind that’s not a fly-caught world record).
However, Simon Chu’s roughly 10 lbs. brown trout is also right at 25% of the world record (40 lbs., 4 oz., caught out of the Little Red River in my home state of Arkansas).
Andrew Bell’s 9 lbs. Pacific Bonefish poses an interesting question, because we don’t know the species and Indo-Pacific Bones supposedly get bigger than Atlantic bones (there may just be less pressure, however, leading to larger average *catches*). We do have our friend Morsie to rely on:
“The official world-record bonefish is an 8.61kg specimen caught off Zululand, South Africa way back in 1962.”
I assume that’s an Atlantic specimen. 8.61kg is about 18 pounds. I can’t find any evidence of Indo-Pacific bones being any bigger than that weight, and that figure is given in scientific texts as the max size for albula glossodonta (the Indo-Pacific bonefish) as well. Thus, I am awarding Andrew a whopping 50% of the world record figure!
Next, Andrew Brown’s 3 lbs. largemouth bass is about 15% of the the world record caught in Georgia so many years ago.
Michael Exl’s 34 lbs. common carp (cyprinus carpo) is 40% of the current world-record of 84 pounds (caught in Morocco!)
I don’t know the species on Rocky Cox’s carp either, but it looks like a bighead carp (click for link). The bighead record is coincidentally also 85 lbs., hooked by a bowfisherman in Alabama. Thus, Rocky gets only 11% of the total (but he did catch it on a fly – I can’t find a fly-caught record).
So, without further ado, the winners are:
Andrew Bell with his whopping 9 lb. bonefish and Michael Exl’s mammoth 34lb. carp! I want to give a tip of the hat to the folks who submitted, especially those who threw in such weird species. If anyone wants to provide me with a verifiable fly-caught record that would upset my math in their favor (or if they want to submit their fish as a NEW WORLD RECORD!!!!), please feel free to do so by email and I will come up with a consolation prize. 🙂
This was a lot of fun, guys. Thanks to everyone who participated. Winners, please PM me your preferred mailing addresses.
Zach